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the Night’s Watch. Sansa doesn’t need to tell anybody she’s not going to be a pawn in someone else’s game; her actions speak for her. Sansa is still clearly traumatized and melancholic, but she continues to survive because that’s who she is: a survivor. Most of Sansa’s character arc, starting in season four, is ruled by both her desires, which are basic in nature: take back Winterfell, her political power, and execute Petyr Baelish. In taking back her home, she will become Lady of the North. This position will allow her to keep herself safe from being used as a pawn in other’s people’s games. Not only that, but by the time Sansa is in her home in a position of power, she must know that she’ll have learned a lot about maneuvering and manipulating people. To do that, she needs Petyr as an ally. Sansa knows what she wants and once she leaves King’s Landing, she spends her time aligning herself with people who can help her first learn how to play the game of thrones, and then those who can help her reclaim Winterfell. Of course, she doesn’t always meet her desires in a socially acceptable way (she wants Petyr dead, and so he dies eventually). But Sansa doesn’t go out of her way to achieve her desires in an immoral way. She has to find a middle ground or gray area when fulfilling her desires. Sansa’s long-term game becomes survival in Game of Thrones. She is a remarkable character in that she starts the show as a traditionally feminine woman who doesn’t necessarily know that her romantic notions aren’t what life is actually like in Westeros, and she is allowed to stay feminine. Absolutely none of her siblings would have survived what she did because Sansa understands how important self-restraint and observation is. She can’t confront people in an aggressive and emotionally charged state; she knows she’ll die. In the first three seasons, she knows she can’t out-manipulate someone like Cersei, and until season seven, she doesn’t try to take Petyr by surprise. Sansa notes dryly in season seven to Petyr, “I’m a slow learner, it’s true. But I learn”. How very true it is. Sansa’s emotions and her reactions to her situations are what drives her forward in the show. She hates being a pawn so she must find a way out of that situation; she hates being forced into arranged marriages with abusive men so she must find a way out of it. Sansa is not, however, ruled by her emotions. She is ruled by her desires. In order to fulfill them, she knows she needs to learn about manipulation and maneuvering people; she needs to sort out who can help her achieve her goals (in the short term and long term); she needs to know who she can convince to help her. It’s a testament to who she is that Sansa manages to not only survive, but thrive in Game of Thrones.
Bibliography Fink, Bruce. A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique. Harvard University Press, 1997. Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1909. Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, translated and edited by James Strachey, volume 14, London: Hogarth Press, 1958. 237-258. Benioff, David & D.B. Weiss, creators. Game of Thrones. HBO, years show ran (2011-present)
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